Amb. Alan Baker: Ten Fundamental Facts Underlying the Peace Process
1. There is no such thing as the “Palestinian territories.” Such an entity has never been determined as such in any binding international document, agreement, or resolution. The final status of the West Bank is still an agreed-upon negotiating issue and should not be prejudged by any political declaration or statement.JPost conference preview: Ron Prosor on Israel and the United Nations
2. The territories are “disputed,” not “occupied.” International law relates to occupation of foreign territory from a prior legitimate sovereign. The area of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) is not foreign, and has, from time immemorial, since at least 1500 BCE, been part of the indigenous Jewish presence in the area, which has been internationally acknowledged historically and recognized in international documents. (h/t Bob Knot)
But just above the portrait with Angelina is the perhaps the most noteworthy and largest photograph in the room. On side of the picture stands then-prime minster of Israel Yitzhak Rabin, his hands folded tensely in front of him, his eyes focused off to the side, his face furious. In the center of the picture stands former PLO leader Yasser Arafat, face twisted away from the camera, surrounded by Russian foreign minister Andrey Kozyrev, King Hussein of Jordan, American secretary of state Warren Christopher, then-foreign minister of Israel Shimon Peres with his finger in Arafat’s face — an uncharacteristic gesture for Peres, Prosor says — and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak who has just said to Arafat, “You kalb ibn kalb, you dog son of a dog, I am the host! What do you think you’re doing!”The West is led by the weaklings the Left wanted
“I call it ‘The Middle East Without Words,’” Prosor explains. The seminal picture was taken three minutes after the pictured world leaders, who had gathered in Cairo in 1994, learned that Arafat had refused to sign the maps of Jerusalem for the Oslo accords. “They find out he’s refused to sign, they’re on live TV, onstage about to make the announcement, and everything goes into chaos,” Prosor explained.
Quite what they're complaining about isn't clear. In Barack Obama they have precisely the "Leader of the Free World" they always wanted. He embodies all that they stand for, and all that they are.
He does not believe in the primacy of Western values. Neither do they. He therefore sees no reason to show leadership around the world. Neither do they. He has downgraded and diminished the U.S. military as a consequence. The Left applauds. He shows weakness to the mullahs in Iran. The Left praises him for his diplomacy. He worships dictatorship-friendly bodies like the UN. The Left cheers him as a peacemaker.
You can't have it both ways. If you want a weak-kneed, apologetic, bleeding heart Western leadership don't feign surprise when the likes of Vladimir Putin fail to take you seriously.
Hammered: The Palestinian Peace Paradox
As we head towards another declaration of failure in the endless negotiations, Israeli life seems to rest forever on two contradictory truths: peace as an absolute necessity and an utter impossibility.
Given all of this, Israelis can perhaps be forgiven for adopting an attitude of stoic despair. The dilemma of the West Bank, it often seems, cannot be resolved. The only solution is that there is no solution. Whatever we choose to do will threaten our survival. Under such circumstances, many of us think, the best we can do is to dig in, preserve stability as best we can, and see to our own progress and prosperity. There is nothing to be done but accept that we are perpetually trapped between hammer and anvil.Glick to Obama: 'You're Not Scaring Us'
And yet, there is one indisputable fact that seems to indicate at least the possibility of cutting the proverbial Gordian Knot: Despite everything, the majority of Israelis continue to support a two-state solution in some form. Our enemies may wish to believe that we are an inherently brutal people, but this is an unjust claim; Israelis, by and large, like neither war nor occupation, and should anything like a genuine opportunity to divest ourselves of the West Bank present itself, I do not think the majority of Israelis would refuse to take the risk.
In fact, Israelis have already shown themselves willing to do so. When peace seemed possible at the end of the 1990s, Israelis voted for its primary advocate, Ehud Barak, in a landslide. Barak later made an unprecedented concessionary offer of peace to Yasser Arafat. Had Arafat not refused it, I have no doubt that Israelis would have supported its implementation, however painful.
Glick disputed Obama's claims vigorously. "The demographic data [Obama] is using to threaten Israel with destruction are phony. Even officials at the U.S. Census Bureau privately acknowledge that demographics work in Israel's favor and to the Palestinians' detriment," she said, noting that Palestinian growth had been inflated.David Singer: Jordan Gets Jittery Again
"When he talks about a permanent occupation, we speak of a permanent liberation. We are not 'occupying' the West Bank of the Jordan. These areas are part of the sovereign territory allocated to the Jewish people by the international community as far back as 1922. They were never granted to anyone else in a legally binding way.
"More than three quarters of the Jews of Israel believe in incorporating all or parts of the West Bank into Israel on a permanent basis," she added. "We know the two-state peace plan is a lie. We know the PLO wants to destroy Israel more than it wants a Palestinian state. And we know that we will not lose our Jewish majority if we incorporate the West Bank into Israel.
"He says, beware and we say, 'Bring it on. We aren't afraid of you.'"
Abdullah recognised then that compromise would inevitably involve Israel retaining part of the West Bank – notwithstanding the PLO demanding it all.Report: U.S. May Unveil Framework Peace Deal Without Agreement of Israel or Palestinian Authority
With a negotiated two-state solution likely to fall by the wayside despite Kerry’s desperate efforts to keep it alive – Abdullah is clearly aware that with less of the West Bank to talk about in 2014 than in 2006 – the PLO might attempt to overthrow Abdullah – as it unsuccessfully tried to do in 1970 with Abdullah’s father – King Hussein .
Whilst Abdullah warned this week that “Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine” – the PLO Charter – and history – ominously state otherwise.
Jordan needs a seat at that negotiating table – immediately.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is determined to present a proposal by no later than March 28 – the day when a fourth segmented release of Palestinian Arab terrorists from Israeli prisons is scheduled to take place, Ma’ariv said.Groups to PM: Tell AIPAC and the World We're Not
According to a senior level Israeli government official cited in the report, “There is a serious debate taking place within the White House over whether a framework agreement should be presented now, at any price, or whether to wait. The problem is that the [American] government has no Plan B if both sides reject the proposal.”
'Occupiers'
The letter to Netanyahu was signed by 23 individuals and organizations — including former ambassadors Yoram Ettinger and Zvi Mazel, former Knesset member Arieh Eldad, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the National Council of Young Israel and the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel — and says that “over the years, Palestinian Authority officials and their supporters have repeated the same message: Israeli settlements in the areas beyond the 1967 lines are illegal according to international law. This mantra has been repeated with great consistency.Netanyahu's Lesson from Ukraine: Don't Trust Obama on Iran
“Because Israel has not countered with a consistent and solid refutation of this position, it has become accepted by most of the world’s governments, as well as by international media and a host of international organizations and academic institutions.”
In addition, the letter says, “this provides the rationale for an economic, academic and cultural boycott on the part of nations and organizations in many places in the world. It becomes a weapon that serves the goal of weakening Israel. It is, as well, a tool for putting pressure on the Government of Israel in the midst of negotiations, so that it is difficult for Israel to come to the table from a position of strength.”
The Ukrainian crisis therefore means that Israel is more likely than ever to attempt a pre-emptive attack on Iran alone. Like Iran, it knows that Obama’s pretense that a military option is still on the table is a joke. It was fitting that Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine came just days after the Obama administration announced massive military cuts that would barely leave the U.S. able to fight a war on one front, much less two. U.S. naval and air power are still quite capable of air strikes on Iran, theoretically, but no one believes Obama would even bother.What's a piece of paper worth?
The Iranians are also learning from the Ukraine crisis. They understand what Obama’s impotence in the Crimea means: they must develop nuclear weapons capability first and ask questions later. They will gamble, correctly, that the U.S. is no longer committed to stopping them. In fact, Obama is more committed to stopping Israel. The one unknown is whether Israel would defy the U.S. and strike anyway, and how. As Iranian confidence grows, so does Israeli determination. The region may be heading for war, whether Obama likes it or not.
Obama has yet to prove himself a president who will leave his mark. His handling of Syria and Iran and even his healthcare reforms have not promised him a legacy. But in Ukraine, based on the signed Budapest Memorandum, he can take charge and erase the shame of the Libya campaign in 2011 when the U.S. was dragged into a fight behind France and Britain.Obama Avoiding Israeli Eye Contact As Impotence On Ukraine Showcased (satire)
Woe to U.S. supporters if the only response to Russia's violation of Ukraine's sovereignty is a boycott of the G-8 Summit in Sochi. The West and Obama have many deals with the Russians -- over Iran, Syria, North Korea -- which tempt them not to get involved. In an age when the West does not want to fight, it does not mind letting the Russians fight for themselves.
And what about the Budapest Memorandum? It will not amount to much if the West continues to act the paper tiger. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's threats to place sanctions on Russia and his upcoming visit to Kiev cannot be a replacement for real action on Washington's behalf. The blow to Ukraine's sovereignty is a blow to the value of an American signature.
Avoidance of this critical question has occurred before. During his last trip to the region, US Secretary of State John Kerry sought to allay Israeli concerns over withdrawal from the Jordan Valley by committing to the provision of US assistance on security and sensory technology, conveniently avoiding the question of the force necessary to make such technology meaningful.‘Yes, Rocks Can Kill People,’ Says Israeli Economy Minister Bennett While Visiting 4-Year-Old Terror Victim
“Kerry tried to dazzle the Israelis with whiz-bang technology to detect infiltrators, weapons smugglers, everything,” recalled Dan Shapiro, the US ambassador to Israel. “His tactic was to keep talking so the Israelis wouldn’t be able interrupt and ask him how that technology is working for the US on the Mexican border.”
Shapiro also noted the US administration’s consistent avoidance of another important question: what happens when the Palestinian state to be created through these negotiations fails to stop attacks on Israel from its territory? Any Israeli military action would be condemned as a violation of another nation’s sovereignty, and attract as much or more international opprobrium than it does now.
A State Department spokesman whistled when a reporter posed that question, pretending he could not hear it. (h/t Mightier than the Pen)
Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett on Thursday visited toddler Adele Biton, who has been hospitalized for a year because of rocks thrown at her family’s moving car by West Bank Arabs.IDF notes spike in warnings over potential West Bank kidnappings
On Friday, Bennett wrote on Facebook, ”Yesterday I visited four-year-old Adele Biton, who was critically wounded a year ago in a terrorist attack when rocks were thrown at her near the town of Ariel. Yes, rocks can kill people.”
In response to the escalated threat, the Samaria Territorial Brigade recently held a drill simulating the kidnapping of a soldier by an organized terrorist cell and an attempt to hide the soldier in the Nablus area.Police arrest Palestinian suspected in Petah Tikva stabbing
A senior military source quoted by the IDF’s Hebrew-language website said the number of alerts has grown by dozens of percent, “far more than the same period last year.”
“This is still seen [by terrorists] as the most prestigious attack,” the source added.
The victim, a 31-year-old resident of Bnei Brak, was moderately wounded after his upper body was slashed with a knife by another young man, according to witnesses at the scene. The attack took place under a bridge on a highway at the border of Bnei Brak and Petah Tikva.What Netanyahu will say to Obama on Iran
The assailant fled from the scene after the attack.
During questioning, the 34-year-old suspect in custody told police that the attack was in retaliation for the actions of Israeli security forces, police said.
He will certainly stress how much more dangerous a nuclear-empowered Iran would be — able to orchestrate terrorism with relative impunity, and to provoke confrontation with Israel and with the United States with the swagger of an untouchable power.The ‘Iran Deal’ is Washington’s Gravest Foreign Policy Mistake
Israel’s arguments in favor of an all-or-nothing deal — a deal that ensures that this regime must not attain a nuclear weapons capability — are entirely “realistic,” Netanyahu will doubtless insist. What’s unrealistic, he might argue, is to believe that Iran can be trusted with any kind of potential nuclear weapons program.
And Obama, polite and earnest, will hear out the Israeli prime minister. And, supremely confident that his course is the right course — he is, after all, the two-term president of the United States — will likely bid his Israeli guest graciously on his way while remaining entirely unmoved.
Without any significant leverage on Tehran, having sidelined the Iranian opposition, the White House has no guarantees that Iran’s regime is backing off from nuclear strategic weaponry. Worse, Washington started almost immediately to transfer billions of dollars from “frozen accounts” back to the Iran regime’s coffers.Former Shin Bet Chief Dichter on Iran Nuclear Program: ‘If You Cannot Deal It, Kill It’ (VIDEO)
From an initial conceptual strategic mistake, the Obama Administration moved to implement the most dangerous component of the new policy: Not only ending economic and political pressure, but sending financial support to a terror regime still on the offensive in the region. The hundreds of millions of dollars already received by the Ayatollahs can be, and actually most likely are being, recycled through the Pasdaran into subversive operations against the country’s liberal opposition, the Iranian exiles, Arab governments, and U.S. interests worldwide. The “deal” will go down in history as one of the worst political acts in the West, second only to the signing of a piece of paper in Munich that claimed to be a deal to save the Peace. History has already taught the world, at a very high price, the consequences of dealing with devils.
The former head of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence service, Avi Dichter, suggested on Sunday at the start of the AIPAC policy conference that if talks between Iran and world powers couldn’t bring the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program to an end, military action would.Iran claims new drone can deliver 500-kg. payload
“There is no debate amongst the intelligence services word-wide about the seriousness of Iran to build (a) nuclear weapon,” Dichter said. His approach to the problem: “If you cannot deal it, kill it.”
“Iran intends to destroy the State of Israel,” he said, adding that Iran tells its own people that its plan would be to return citizens who came to the Jewish state since 1948 to where they had originally come from.
The drone, code-named “Karrar,” is capable of carrying a 500-kilogram payload and bombing targets on the ground, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.Yes, We Really Can Stop the Slaughter in Syria
The Karrar has a range of 1,000 kilometers and a top speed of 900 kilometers per hour, the report said.
The continued failure of the international community to act is a decision to continue allowing Syria to spiral deeper into an abyss of instability, with civilians continuing to bear the brunt of the crisis. Former U.S President Bill Clinton has repeatedly said that his failure to act in the midst of the Rwandan genocide was his “greatest mistake” and a “personal failure.” President Obama’s new ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, literally wrote the book on humanitarian intervention and America’s repeated failure to live up to its principles in its Responsibility to Protect, yet the people of Aleppo and Yarmouk and Ghouta are no safer now—in most cases worse off, as improbable as that may have seemed twelve months ago. With no end in sight as the war in Syria reaches its third year, one wonders how Americans will look back on their government’s failure to stop the most horrific atrocity of our decade.As Syrian Regime Counter-Offensives Widen, Hezbollah “Tipping the Scales in Assad’s Favor”
Veteran French-Lebanese journalist Mona Alami on Wednesday published an assessment in USA Today detailing recent military campaigns by Hezbollah on behalf of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, broadly concluding both that the Iran-backed terror group has taken the lead in counter-offensives against rebel elements and that those counter-offensives “now appear to be tipping the scales in Assad’s favor.”New clashes in blockaded area of Damascus halt aid
UNWRA spokesman Chris Gunness issued a statement on Monday, calling on all warring parties in the city’s Palestinian-dominated Yarmouk to “immediately allow” the resumption of aid to the area.Libya: Mustard Gas Nearly Reached Syrian Rebels
For nearly a year, forces loyal to President Bashar Assad have prevented food distribution and medical aid to tens of thousands of Yarmouk residents. As a result, over 100 people have died of hunger or hunger-related illnesses.
Libyan officials recently caught several members of a Muslim extremist group as they attempted to send deadly chemical weapons to Syria, Channel 2 reports.
The report quoted Colonel Mansour al-Mazini as saying that the extremists had been caught with a container of mustard gas. The gas was confiscated by Libyan soldiers.